The Hunter Inside

by David McGowan

  ‘Right, okay. You need to go right from here…’ His speech was interrupted as the big man suddenly came into the room again. Both men turned and looked at him in silence. ‘Right, Josh. I’m gonna leave now so I’ll see you later okay?’

  ‘Sure chief,’ Josh the officer replied, and both men watched the big man as he left the police station, swinging the heavy door open as if it were made from polystyrene.

  Josh the Officer then continued, ‘If you take a right from here there’s a motel about a kilometer away. Turn out of the parking lot and travel to the end of the block. You’ll see the Atlantic Ocean; you can’t miss it. It’s a huge blue thing.’

  His feeble attempts at humor were beginning to grind on the nerves of Bill Arnold, but the man who had been struggling with frayed nerves for most of the previous night and certainly for the whole of the day clung on to his temper and tried to maintain an air of equability while Josh the Officer continued, ‘Take a left and drive alongside the ocean and you’ll see motels dotted about up there. You may have to try more than one though, what with it being June and everything.’

  ‘Okay, thanks. I’ll give it a try.’ Bill was eager to get away from the police station and find one of the motels so that he could get some sleep and recharge his batteries. That was all he desired at that moment, not jokes or advice, just rest.

  ‘My pleasure,’ Josh the Officer called, as Bill pushed open the door and stepped out into the cold wind. The fresh air was a relief, and he inhaled deeply before moving towards his car; itself taking a well earned break from the pressures of the road.

  After attempting to start the engine four times unsuccessfully, he started to worry that the old car had had enough. It had held out through the strain being put on it by the earlier excess speed plus the distance traveled, but he was concerned that it had given up on him before he was ready to give up. Thankfully, it finally sputtered into life on the fifth attempt.

  He heaved a sigh of relief, releasing the handbrake and turning right out of the parking lot, renewing his quest to find asylum in Atlantic Beach.

  Further down the road he saw the outline of a figure sitting on the curb with a car pulled up beside him. As he drove towards their position he saw that a man leant out of the window, speaking despite the fact that it appeared the man on the curb was ignoring him.

  His suspicions were confirmed as he reached their location: it was the huge police officer and Paul the Wounded who were having a tête-à-tête on the sidewalk.

  Upon his approach both men fell silent and looked towards his Ford. He slowed slightly as he passed, his curiosity demanding he show an interest while his tiredness told him to accelerate, not decelerate. The huge police officer gave him a salute, while Paul the Wounded sat with a look of bemusement similar to the look that Bill Arnold himself wore. It portrayed his desire to be as far away from the scene as possible.

  Bill listened to the voice of tiredness, continuing past the two men, intent on leaving them behind and getting back to the present and, more importantly, the future. But the first thing for him to do was to find a motel, and as thoughts of the two men he was leaving behind him on the sidewalk began to quickly fade, that was just what Bill Arnold set out to do.

  9

  Sandy Myers felt rotten.

  Her afternoon had been interrupted by the rattle of the mailbox, but her fear to venture outside, or even look out of the window, meant that she did not see the hulking figure skulk back into the shadows to conceal its identity.

  Twenty minutes had passed before she was able to coax herself outside the house. When she finally did, she found the envelope. A feeling of abject terror rooted her to the spot with the envelope held in her trembling hands, preventing her from running back to the house.

  The effect of shock upon the human body and senses was the same for Sandy Myers at that moment as it is for every other person in the world - unpredictable. She thought flight would win over fear every time in the situation in which she found herself. But she stood and stared at the envelope, knowing that it held something which she did not want to see.

  It was addressed to Sandy Carson, and there was only one person in the world that referred to her as Sandy Carson.

  The presence of a credit card bill in the mailbox was usually enough to inspire in Sandy a feeling of terror. As it did for most people, money ruled the life of Sandy Myers, but when she opened the beige envelope and saw the words ‘I am watching you’, money was the last thing on her mind.

  It was the fear that came out of shock that made her run inside the house and lock the doors. It was shock that made her drop the note as she went, tripping over her feet and afraid of the shadows.

  Once she was inside the house she went around every window and door, double-checking the locks to make sure the house was impenetrable from the outside. Then she sat down on the floor in the lounge, holding her head in her hands and weeping for what seemed like an eternity. She was scared to move even an inch, and while she was aware that this made her a sitting target, she was also aware that she must see Joe and tell him what had really happened to her parents before she could do anything else.

  She sat for four hours, nervous as hell, emotional as hell, and jumping a couple of inches off the carpet every time she heard a noise. There were thousands of noises for her to cope with on this particular afternoon.

  Despite drawing the blinds, Sandy felt like she was being watched. She found herself wondering about the power of the thing that was out to take her life. The situation was very real for Sandy Myers, and not one percent of her mind could offer a sense of safety or security. A thousand locks would not make her feel safe, and the glass in the windows was easily smashed if her parents’ killer, her would-be killer, decided now was the moment to take her life.

  As a result of this, her fear spiraled outwards, manifesting itself in a form of paranoia, which made her fear that something had happened to her husband when he was fifteen minutes late arriving home from work.

  What if he’s been watching us and decided to take away the obstacles to his success? she wondered to herself. The sense of control that she had so craved in her topsy-turvy existence ebbed away from her senses quickly, and by the time Joe turned his key in the door her strength was sapped.

  The door opened about six inches, before the chain that she had applied came taut with a crack that was echoed by the crack of Joe Myers’ head as his momentum took him into the door.

  ‘Honey, what’s going on?’ he called out, while trying to look through the small gap that was open to him, immediately nervous. Sandy did not normally use the latch, in the daytime at least. It was now 5 pm, and they only normally put the latch across when they were on their way to bed.

  Despite his long day, that was where Joe had wanted to take Sandy when he arrived home, but his desire quickly vanished as he realized there was something wrong. ‘What’s going on?’ he yelled as he heard footsteps approaching the door.

  The footsteps were Sandy’s. She rushed to open the door, feeling as though the precarious grip that she had on her emotions was about to be wrenched from her.

  She was right.

  No sooner had she managed to remove the chain from the door and pull it open, than she collapsed into the arms of her bewildered husband, tears streaming down her cheeks as she buried her face in his shoulder and tried to cope with the convulsive sobs that racked her body.

  ‘What’s going on, Sandy? Where are the boys?’ He held the same huge amount of love for his sons as Sandy. They came first and they were the first things that he worried about. Not a minute passed of the day when he was not thinking about them. He knew that in Sandy’s eyes he came second to the boys, a close second but second all the same, and now, as he watched his wife’s tears turning a patch of his deep blue shirt even deeper, his panic was audible in the questions that he asked her.

  ‘Martha… Martha’s t..t…taken them,’ Sandy managed to answer through her sobs. Martha was the mother of a friend of t
he twins. ‘I c.. called earlier and asked her to p… pick them up from school.’

  ‘Why? What’s going on Sandy? Are you ill?’ The look on the face of his wife was tearing him apart. It was one of despair mixed with shock, fear and desperation. If he had been able to think about anything but finding out what was wrong, he might have been tempted to turn and look over his shoulder to make sure there was not a Tyrannosaurus Rex standing in the doorway, such was the look upon her face. It was a look he had never seen on the face of anybody before; not even in the schoolbooks that showed pictures of war, children running naked down a street to escape murderous soldiers. His wife’s look suggested she had witnessed the destruction that an atomic bomb could cause, but the house still stood.

  Her sobbing decreased and she was able to gain a millimeter of control that in turn allowed her to speak more regularly. ‘Joe, I need to speak to you. I’m sorry Joe, I should have told you before - but I was afraid.’ The speed of her deliverance increased as she spoke, and she was forced to pause in order to prevent herself from losing control for a second time.

  ‘What are you talking about Sandy? What’s going on?’ His stomach was beginning to feel light with dread, as if an army of ants had invaded his body and were removing his internal organs, one by one.

  ‘I should have told you Joe. I should have told you before we were married.’ Her gaze looked right through him, and he could see that she was in another space and time. She was reliving something in her mind’s eye, and it didn’t seem to Joe as though she were going to tell him before they were dead - never mind before they were married. She was torn apart by the vision inside her mind, something which was reflected in the mixture of fear, anger, sorrow, loss and desperation that adorned her normally placid features.

  He was forced to raise his voice as he said, ‘For fuck’s sake, will you please tell me what’s going on here?’ His outburst had the desired effect of bringing her focus back to the room in which she stood. Her husband rarely swore. When he did it meant that he was just about ready to crack and Sandy didn’t want this; she knew she couldn’t stay around and place their lives in danger.

  ‘I have to tell you something, and you must listen to every word. It’s about my parents.’ A tear escaped her left eye as she said this, and Joe took hold of her hands. He couldn’t bear to see his wife like this and be powerless to do anything.

  ‘It’s about how they died, Joe. It’s about how they were murdered.’

  ‘Murdered? What do you mean, murdered?’ Joe Myers felt like a train had hit him. The word ‘murdered’ resounded in his mind like a shrill whistle and he mumbled, ‘But you told me…’ His words trailed off as a look of betrayal came over his features.

  ‘Joe, I know what I told you. But it wasn’t the truth. They were murdered.’ Fresh tears wet her cheeks, which had taken on a red tinge from the bucketfuls she had already cried. She had hoped she would never have to tell him this. She had wondered how he would take such news, and her worst fears were confirmed in the confused and hurt look on his face.

  ‘But, why did you lie to me? What happened? Who killed them?’

  There were so many questions that he needed to be answered all at once. He realized that this must be a hard thing for her to tell him, but he couldn’t prevent the questions from spilling out of his mouth.

  Consumed by the past, they were forced to take their eyes away from the present. Joe could not help his selfish need to have his questions answered. Sandy had had ten years to get used to the deaths of her parents, and the sudden revelation made Joe put his own hurt feelings first. He had to find a way to deal with this news and to get over the feeling of betrayal that came with this revelation from his wife; he thought they didn’t have any secrets from one another.

  He scanned his memory, remembering the day that they first spoke about her parents. They had been dating for three months. She was almost twenty and he had just turned twenty-one. It had been after a night at the movies. He couldn’t quite remember what it was they had seen; it was dreadful they both agreed, but afterwards they had driven to a secluded lover’s lane near to the cinema. It had looked like a parking lot – a full parking lot - and this had amused Sandy; she had laughed about people having one-track minds.

  It was that great time in a relationship, the getting-to-know-you stage, and everything she told him had a magical effect upon his life and his outlooks. Every small new thing he found out about her gave him a feeling that layers of strength had already began to build between them, and he already knew that he was in love with her and wanted to marry her.

  On that night she had told him how her parents had been killed one year before. She said they were drowned in a boating accident. Now, he was wondering what other surprises she may have in store. His creased expression reflected the turmoil that he felt, and he couldn’t help but reach out the hand he had moved away a moment before when confronted with this news.

  ‘You’ve got to tell me everything,’ he pleaded with her and sat down exhaustedly on the sofa.

  ‘I will Joe. I’m sorry. I didn’t lie to you for any bad purpose. I did it to protect you.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What were you trying to protect me from?’

  ‘The man who killed my parents is trying to kill me too.’ The certainty with which she imparted this sent a shiver down the spine of Joe Myers. She was deadly serious, and he had not known her to be paranoid before. It didn’t make sense to him though. ‘Sandy, Sandy, you’ve got to start at the beginning.’

  ‘When I was nearly eighteen my mom received a letter. I didn’t know about it at first - she kept it from me. It was only later that I found out.’

  She wept harder as she said the last part of her sentence, and Joe moved closer to her on the sofa, determined to be strong for her. She continued, ‘Only after they died.’

  ‘But what does the letter have to do with their deaths? I don’t get this Sandy.’

  ‘It wasn’t just one, Joe. They received thirty before they were killed. They all carried threats, written in scrawled handwriting. Looked like a child had done it. Well, they must have decided it was some sort of prank so they kept it from me. They never went to the police, Joe. They just packed the letters away neatly and tried to carry on like nothing was wrong. I guess they were trying to protect me - like I was trying to protect you.

  ‘It was obvious that there was something wrong though. I could tell, and I even asked them a couple of times - but they would never say anything. They acted as though they didn’t know what I was talking about. I was thinking of all kinds of different possibilities for their sudden change of personality. I even thought maybe my father was having an affair. Can you believe that, Joe? I thought my father was having an affair.’ She laughed an incredulous laugh that could not mask the true horror of the situation in which she found herself.

  Joe Myers had his own struggles. The look on his wife’s face was something he had only ever seen in movies before, normally just before that particular character is carted off to a mental asylum. He knew what kind of a strain she had been under recently, and he found himself questioning internally whether what his wife was telling him was true, or some kind of deluded fantasy.

  Surely she wouldn’t have been able to keep something like that a secret for all those years? Surely she would have told him well before now if this were true? But still, here she was, telling him this, and he must believe his wife, right?

  ‘My mom got more and more edgy as time wore on, all the time putting a false-front on her emotions. But I could see the cracks. I could see something was wrong just by looking at her face. But they just continued to ignore it. I guess they must have been hoping for the best or something. Well, hope is fickle…’ Her voice held a note of defiance as her cynicism asserted itself, and this was something Joe grasped as a good thing. He was trying to hang on to his own hope for the sake of his family, and this was the first sign of fighting spirit he had seen from his wife since he had arrived home what n
ow seemed like ten hours ago.

  ‘Why do you think you’re in danger now though, Sandy? After ten years, why only now? Tell me what happened to them’. He felt he could force the issue - her new defiant tone might help her to get through what it was that she had to say.

  Her gaze took on the same distant one as earlier as she reconstructed every moment in her mind, taking the same steps she had taken ten years earlier. ‘One night we were sat together, the three of us. We had the TV on and we were all laughing at something that was on, I forget what it was. When we heard the noise, all three of us jumped out of our skin, it was like…well, it was like a scraping sound, but I had never heard anything like it before. I’ll never forget the way my mother looked at my father. It was like she knew, like she knew he had come for her.’

  She was totally immersed in what she was saying. This made Joe anxious. He felt that if he stood up and walked out of the room, she wouldn’t look up, but would just go on recounting the details of her parent’s death. It was as if she had retreated into her own mind to a situation that she could step back into at any time. The horror of what she was about to tell him had installed in her brain a virtual reality game that she now took part in, oblivious to her actual surroundings.

  ‘Who had come, Sandy?’ His wife ignored the question, as she continued to pass the seconds individually - as they happened that night.

  ‘Both of my parents stood up, but neither seemed to know what it was they were going to do. They looked at each other as though they were trying to have a conversation through telepathy and I sat and watched. My father wanted to go and check; to face whatever was out there, and my mom didn’t want to let him go alone. They told me to stay inside and lock the door after they went out. I told them that was stupid and asked why they would want me to lock them out of the house. It didn’t make any sense. But they made me promise. They said that if I heard anything I should stay inside and call the police. Then they went outside, my father first and then my mom. I locked the door, Joe, I locked the door.’